Go-kart reportedly stolen from kid at New Castle Motorsports Park, family offers $1k for return
NEW CASTLE, Ind. — A boy’s 2019 Tony go-kart was reportedly stolen at the New Castle Motorsports Park on Mother’s Day. “The kart has sentimental value,” stated the child’s dad, Levi Haight, in a Facebook post. “It was my kids favorite kart.” The vehicle was equipped with the following: Alfano gauge Kinetic racing engine Plain […]
NASCAR playoff standings, Cup points updated after Viva Mexico 250 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez
The NASCAR Cup Series playoff standings and Cup points have been updated after the race in Mexico City. There are now 10 races remaining before the playoffs begin on Aug. 31. Drivers who are on the outside looking in of the playoff standings need to make a move soon to secure a spot in the […]
The NASCAR Cup Series playoff standings and Cup points have been updated after the race in Mexico City. There are now 10 races remaining before the playoffs begin on Aug. 31.
Drivers who are on the outside looking in of the playoff standings need to make a move soon to secure a spot in the postseason. Here’s a look at the updated playoff standings and Cup points after the Viva Mexico 250.
NASCAR playoff standings after Mexico City
Shane van Gisbergen won the NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico City, which means he has clinched a playoff spot. He became the 10th different driver to win a Cup Series race this year.
Kyle Busch didn’t finish the race because he was involved in a wreck. After being tied for the final playoff spot last week, Busch slipped to 20th in the playoff standings and is now 50 points below the cut line.
Rank
Driver
Wins
Playoff Points
1
Kyle Larson
3
23
2
Denny Hamlin
3
18
3
Christopher Bell
3
16
4
William Byron
1
12
5
Ryan Blaney
1
8
6
Joey Logano
1
7
7
Austin Cindric
1
7
8
Josh Berry
1
6
9
Shane van Gisbergen
1
6
10
Ross Chastain
1
5
11
Chase Elliott
0
+146
12
Tyler Reddick
0
+123
13
Bubba Wallace
0
+57
14
Chase Briscoe
0
+39
15
Alex Bowman
0
+22
16
Chris Buescher
0
+19
17
Ryan Preece
0
-19
18
Michael McDowell
0
-43
19
AJ Allmendinger
0
-45
20
Kyle Busch
0
-50
Cup points updated after Mexico City race
Kyle Larson finished 36th at Mexico City, which gave William Byron a bigger lead in Cup points. By the look of things, Byron is on his way to winning the regular season title.
Denny Hamlin dropped a couple of spots because he didn’t compete in the Mexico City race. A few days before the race, Hamlin announced the birth of his son, and he skipped the race to be with his family.
SVG wins Mexico NASCAR Cup Series race, secures playoff spot
With his win in the Viva Mexico 250 Sunday, Shane Van Gisbergen earned his first NASCAR Cup Series of 2025, securing his first-ever Cup Series playoff berth. SVG started from the pole at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, leading 55 of the 100 laps en route to his second career Cup Series win. “What a week. I […]
With his win in the Viva Mexico 250 Sunday, Shane Van Gisbergen earned his first NASCAR Cup Series of 2025, securing his first-ever Cup Series playoff berth.
SVG started from the pole at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, leading 55 of the 100 laps en route to his second career Cup Series win.
“What a week. I have really enjoyed myself here. I felt pretty rubbish today,” SVG said. “Thank you to Safety Culture, Trackhouse, Chevy and these guys right here.
“I think the 54 was close, but that last stint, what a pleasure to just be ripping lap after lap and to watch them all get smaller in the mirror. Unreal.”
Entering the Mexico City race, SVG entered the race 33rd in driver’s points. Before his win, SVG’s lone Top-10 finish came at the Circuit of the Americas road course in Austin in March where he finished sixth.
The Austin road course winner, Christopher Bell, finished second, leading twice for four laps.
“I was good; just not good enough,” Bell said. “I was kind of — I lacked a little bit.
“The fact that I was a little bit off in both (Mexico City races), I think I just need to work on myself a little bit, figure out what Shane was doing through a couple sections of the racetrack, and my guys have been bringing really good road course cars for a long time now.”
Chase Elliott, the seven-time road course winner who has not won in the Next Gen racecar, finished third.
“We were kind of up and down all day and finally got going there a few runs from the end and (Alan Gustafson, crew chief) made us a good call to get us on tires,” Elliott said.
“Finally had a restart go halfway decent and got a decent Top-3 out of it.”
Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell finished off the Top-5 positions.
Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.
From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book “All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story” with racer Geoff Bodine.
Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.
You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. livid with Carson Hocevar after second tangle in three weeks
Bob Pockrass FOX Motorsports Insider MEXICO CITY — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. doesn’t care if Carson Hocevar made a mistake Sunday. Stenhouse sounded like a driver who cared about just getting even, but with the knowledge he probably shouldn’t do anything on foreign soil that could make things even more complicated for him. Hocevar turned Stenhouse […]
MEXICO CITY — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. doesn’t care if Carson Hocevar made a mistake Sunday.
Stenhouse sounded like a driver who cared about just getting even, but with the knowledge he probably shouldn’t do anything on foreign soil that could make things even more complicated for him.
Hocevar turned Stenhouse during the final stage Sunday of the inaugural Cup race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and after the race Stenhouse went to Hocevar’s car and with Hocevar still in it, yelled at him and hit his helmet.
“I am going to beat your ass when we get back in the States,” Stenhouse told him.
Carson Hocevar has drawn the ire of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. after recent racing incidents.
Hocevar had turned Stenhouse just two weeks earlier at Nashville. So two times in three races did Hocevar ruined a potential solid finish for the veteran Stenhouse.
“I told him on the phone [after Nashville], if it happens again, we’re going to have issues,” Stenhouse said after the brief exchange. “And then that one was even worse because he’s a lap down. He’s racing nobody.
“I was working on the 34 [of Todd Gilliland] trying to work my way forward. The tire attrition was pretty difficult coming down to the end of it. And just from two, three [lengths] back, he just ran right in the back of us. A really dumb move, two out of three weeks on me now.”
In his second year of Cup racing, Hocevar tried to get in a few words with Stenhouse to admit the mistake.
“I know he was very mad, and I was very apologetic,” Hocevar said. “I just got left and in the marbles and slid a lot longer than I expected. Obviously, No. 1, that’s not somebody I would ever want to hit again. But No. 2, I wasn’t racing anything. I was just logging laps, just trying to wait on a yellow and maybe see if we can put our day back together.
“I just hit a curb wrong and got in the marbles and slid all the way through the corner. I tried to turn left and avoid him. But just a really, really sloppy day by me. And then that was another incident of the day that was really just sloppy.”
And Stenhouse was really mad. He finished 27th; Hocevar 34th.
“I normally don’t cuss or anything, but that stuff gets me pretty heated when I’m out there on the lead lap, trying to work my way forward,” Stenhouse said. “I felt like we had a car that was better on the long run versus the guys we were racing and felt like I could have got into the top-20 right there, but didn’t have the opportunity.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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Van Gisbergen’s emotional win in Mexico City locks him into NASCAR playoffs
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Shane Van Gisbergen once again mastered a new track — this one the iconic Mexico City… MEXICO CITY (AP) — Shane Van Gisbergen once again mastered a new track — this one the iconic Mexico City road course — to win NASCAR’s first Cup Series points-paying race outside the United States […]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Shane Van Gisbergen once again mastered a new track — this one the iconic Mexico City…
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Shane Van Gisbergen once again mastered a new track — this one the iconic Mexico City road course — to win NASCAR’s first Cup Series points-paying race outside the United States of the modern era.
The New Zealander led 60 of 100 laps Sunday at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez to earn his first Cup victory since he won in his NASCAR debut at the inaugural 2023 street course race in Chicago. That victory changed his career trajectory and Van Gisbergen left Australia V8 Supercars, where he was a multiple champion, for a full-time move to NASCAR.
Although he had success in the Xfinity Series — he won three races last year as Trackhouse Racing developed him for a Cup Series ride — Van Gisbergen has struggled this year at NASCAR’s top level.
He started the race ranked 33rd in the Cup standings with only one top-10 finish through the first 15 races of the season. But his victory in Mexico City earned him an automatic berth into NASCAR’s playoffs with a shot to race for the Cup Series championship.
Van Gisbergen benefitted from an early pop-up rain shower on the first lap of the race because he’s an exceptionally skilled driver on a wet surface. His win at Chicago was in monsoon-like conditions.
He won the pole in Mexico City and started the race as the BetMGM betting favorite, particularly since rain was in the forecast. He had to contend with several challengers, Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing among them, but took the lead for good with 31 laps remaining.
Trackhouse now has two of its drivers — Ross Chastain and Van Gisbergen — locked into the playoffs. But it was a bit of a disappointment for Daniel Suarez, the Monterrey native who thrilled the hometown crowd with a win in the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, as he failed to challenge his teammate for the win and finished 19th.
Suarez, who appeared to be blinking back tears as he sang along with the Mexican national anthem in pre-race ceremonies, desperately wanted the home win in this contract year with Trackhouse. He was the face of this event as NASCAR ventured outside the U.S. with its top series for the first time since 1958.
Bell finished second in a Toyota for JGR — 16.567 seconds behind the winner. He was followed by Chase Elliott in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Alex Bowman, who hurt his back in a crash last week at Michigan, withstood the pain for a fourth-place finish in his Hendrick Chevrolet.
Michael McDowell of Spire Motorsports was fifth and followed by John Hunter Nemechek in a Toyota for Legacy Motor Club. Chase Briscoe of JGR was seventh and followed by Cole Custer for Haas Factory as the highest-finishing Ford driver. William Byron of Hendrick was ninth and Chris Buescher of RFK Racing rounded out the top 10.
Chevrolets took five of the top-10 positions, including the victory.
Bad day for Busch
Kyle Busch, who started the race at the bottom of the playoff standings, suffered a massive setback when he crashed out of the race on the sixth lap and finished last in the 37-car field.
Busch, who was ranked 15th in the Cup Series standings when he arrived in Mexico City, blamed the incident on the wet track.
“Just in the rain, and I went down into (Turn) 11 and got on the brakes pretty hard, and everything was fine, everything was comfortable, stopped really good,” he said. “And I’m like ‘OK I can be a little more aggressive getting into 1,’ and I figured it was going to be fine, and as soon as I went to the brakes, it was like being on ice, and I was just sliding.
“About a second a half or so, I was trying to figure out which direction to go, and I was like I’ve got to turn this thing around backward, because I’m going to nail some people. Hate it for all those involved in my mishap. I hate that the rain came and now it’s nice and dry. Just have to go fight for more points in another week.”
Gordon gives command
NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon was selected to give the command for drivers to start their engines and admitted before the race he’d done some practicing.
Why? Because he incorporated both English and Spanish in his delivery of the most famous words in racing.
“Hola Mexico!” Gordon shouted. “Pilotos start your engines!
Up Next
NASCAR races next Sunday at Pocono Raceway, where Ryan Blaney won last year.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
NASCAR results: Full finishing order of Cup Series race in Mexico City
For the second time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, Shane van Gisbergen is a winner. He started from the pole Sunday and claimed the first-ever Cup race in Mexico City at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The 36-year-old is known as a road-course specialist. His first victory came in his debut — the 2023 Chicago Street […]
For the second time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, Shane van Gisbergen is a winner.
He started from the pole Sunday and claimed the first-ever Cup race in Mexico City at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The 36-year-old is known as a road-course specialist. His first victory came in his debut — the 2023 Chicago Street Race.
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SVG’s margin was huge, too. No other driver finished within 16 seconds of him.
Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott also notched top-three finishes. Let’s check out the full finishing order.
NASCAR standings: Results from Cup Series race in Mexico City today
Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88
John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47
(This story was updated to add a gallery.)
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR today: Results, winner of Cup Series race at Mexico City
